The Whatcom Excavator
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Who's Planning Our Lives?
    • Diminishing Property Rights
    • NGO's & Public-Private Partners
    • Agenda 21
    • Buzzwords
    • Deep Thought
    • Best Available Science
    • Best Available Humor >
      • Humor Archive
  • The DREDGE
    • Gotta See This
    • How To Dredge
  • Bulldozed
    • Eco-Activism and County Policy
    • CELDF - "Democracy"
    • ALERT: Community Energy Challenge
  • Pig Trough
    • ReSources
    • Sustainable Connections
    • BALLE
    • ICLEI
    • Whatcom County Community Network
    • Big Wheels Award
  • Contact Us

Another "Monumental" Taking - the other San Juan County, in Utah

2/14/2017

0 Comments

 
WE just saw this.  Can these insane "national monument" declarations be un-done by the new administration?   WE wonder how things are going over in San Juan County, Washington.  Remember what happened there in 2012??
Picture
Obama’s waning days of power grow the government by 1.5 million acres
Posted by Ken Ivory on January 16, 2017​
Convention of States

​Thomas Jefferson acquired 530 million acres for $15 million and, under the Constitution, relinquished the vast majority of it to newly created states and their people -- and changed the world.

Outgoing President Barack Obama has now locked up 553 million acres as national monuments, in disregard of the Constitution and the equal protection of law, leaving western states and their people with burning forests, polluted air, devastated water supplies, blocked off access, underfunded schools and dead communities - and also changed the world.

Thomas Jefferson changed the world with his pen.  He immortalized the American recipe for peace and prosperity with these 56 words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Jefferson knew it was “self-evident” that all governing power resides in the people and that governments exist to secure their inherent right to pursue their unique vision of the “good life.” Secured in their right to own property and put it to the beneficial use of their choosing through their unique creative genius (liberty), Americans changed the world.
Barack Obama also changed the world with his pen. Through unilateral monument designations, executive orders, and a metastasizing mountain of federal regulations, President Obama has trampled this American recipe for peace and prosperity on his way out the door. Hard working ranching, farming, mining, timber, coal and energy producing families – who once supported America, and their own thriving communities and schools – are under attack at every turn by their own federal government.  They are not secure in their right to pursue their unique vision of the “good life.” America (and the world) suffers because of it.

San Juan County, Utah is suffering because of it. This is where President Obama, from his Hawaiian vacation last week, seized 1.5 million acres with his pen. San Juan County, Utah has only 8% private land. The federal government already controls the overwhelming majority of the land in San Juan County (72%).  The Utah State Legislature, all statewide elected leaders, congressional delegation, and the San Juan County Commission, including Native American County Commissioner Rebecca Benally, opposed this attack on their American Dream.

The schoolchildren of Utah suffer because of it. Included in the 1.5 million acres that President Obama locked up with his pen, are 109,000 acres of land owned by the schoolchildren of Utah. Because the federal government doesn’t pay taxes on 66% of the total Utah landmass that it controls, Utah is already the lowest in the nation in per-pupil funding. The federal government does pay, when, and if, it feels like it, a token payment called PILT, or Payment In Lieu of Taxes. Utahns, and Westerners, who understand the American recipe for peace and prosperity denied them by their own federal government, call this token PILT payment, Pennies In Lieu of Trillions.

Twenty years ago, President Clinton, with his pen, hit Garfield County, Utah with a 1.9 million acre national monument. Today, the timber, mining and ranching industries of Garfield County are dying on the vine. Faced with school closures from families moving away, Garfield County declared an economic state of emergency last year. If you were to ask Garfield County Commissioner Leland Pollock what the number one export of Garfield County is, he – along with county commissioners all around the West – will tell you, it’s their children!

Having secured independence from an unaccountable, centralized power, Thomas Jefferson’s founding associates penned a constitutional system “to secure the blessings of liberty” to themselves and their posterity. They knew, as President Reagan would later verbalize, that “as government expands, liberty contracts.”
​
For that very reason, they divided governing power between state and national governments (federalism), and among the three branches within each government (separation of powers). Under Article V of the Constitution, they invested state legislatures with the power to maintain and defend this liberty-protecting system. Under Article VI, every state legislator, as their first official act, swears a solemn oath to protect the voice of their people by maintaining and defending this system.

Article V provides two methods for proposing repairs and modifications to our system: 2/3rds of Congress can propose amendments, or 2/3rds of the states can apply for a convention of states to propose amendments. In either case, amendment proposals become part of the Constitution once ratified by 3/4ths of the states.

Congress has proposed amendments, which 27 times have been ratified. The states have never used the second method, which was included in the Constitution for the very purpose of limiting the power and scope of the national government.

Many now believe that Washington will never fix itself. Current governors Greg Abbott (TX) and Scott Walker (WI), and past governors Jeb Bush (FL), Bobby Jindal (LA), and Mike Huckabee (AR), along with many other prominent scholars and leaders around the nation, are embracing the Convention of States Project as the only solution big enough to restore governing balance; to make the voice of the people larger again and the role (and pen) of Washington smaller.

In a nation founded by a people determined to govern themselves, now is the time for their posterity to take up their Article V pen, repair and restore the divisions between their state and national governments, reestablish the American recipe, and again change the world.

Rep. Ken Ivory has served in the Utah House of Representatives since 2010. Ken is the Federalism Chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council and senior advisor to the Convention of States Project. He is known for his knowledge in federalism and public lands issues in the West.  Click here to read more from the Daily Caller.

0 Comments
    WE Dredge!
    Picture
    Posting Rules:
    This forum is moderated.  Please make an effort to substantiate claims that support opinion.  Gratuitous profanity and ad-hominem attacks will not be accepted.  You can create a "nickname" if you'd like, and you don't have to reveal your e-mail address.   Feel free to share information and your honest thoughts.

    Categories

    All
    Agenda 21
    Best Available Science
    Big Government
    Eco Activism
    Ethics
    Freedom
    Planning
    Property Rights
    Science
    Small Business
    Social Engineering
    Taxes
    Welcome

    Archives

    January 2022
    September 2020
    August 2020
    April 2020
    November 2019
    August 2019
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011


    Automatic Updates

    Do you want to be notified when new content is added to this newsfeed? Most browsers allow you to subscribe to our Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed. Click on the RSS link below, and follow the instructions.

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.